They mean business: they’re wearing suits and ties…
by Paula Bosse
Early-’60s-era KRLD radio and TV mobile news crews are seen above, showing off their fleet and ready for breaking news. Behind them, the Dallas skyline, seen from an unusual vantage point: the Trinity levees. See this photo really big here, and explore the skyline, from the Republic Bank Tower on the northern edge of downtown, to the Dallas Morning News building on the southern edge.
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Sources & Notes
Photo is from an interesting collection of “very old pictures from KRLD radio and TV,” presented on the website akdart.com.
Welcome to Bishop College… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Bishop College was a historically black college founded in Marshall, Texas in 1881 by the Baptist Home Mission Society. The main building on the Bishop College campus was a grand plantation house built with slave labor in the late 1840s for the wealthy Holcombe family, who allowed it to be used during the Civil War it as the headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Agency of the Confederate Post Office Department. That it became the home of one of the first institutions of higher education for African Americans in Texas seems almost poetic.
In 1961 — 80 years after its founding, Bishop College moved to the Highland Hills area of South Dallas, along Simpson Stuart Road, to become Dallas’ first black college. The move was made in a push to increase enrollment and was made possible by money raised by a group of Dallas businessmen headed by Carr P. Collins, Sr., by the American Baptist Convention, and by the Negro Baptists of Texas. Dallas businessman and philanthropist Karl Hoblitzelle donated the land. What started in 1961 as a 103-acre campus with only seven buildings and an enrollment of 651 students, grew to a campus stretching over 360 acres and a peak enrollment of about 2,000 students.
Despite its move to a major metropolitan area and an increase in enrollment, the college was never on firm financial ground. After years of financial mismanagement, charges of embezzlement, and mounting government debt, the college lost its accreditation and eligibility to receive further funds. In a last-ditch effort to remain open, the college filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1987, but they were never able to recover, and Bishop College closed in 1988 after 107 remarkable years. In 1990, the property was purchased by Comer S. Cottrell, who persuaded the powers-that-be of Waco’s Paul Quinn College — the oldest African-American college in Texas — to move to Dallas and take over the defunct Bishop College campus. Paul Quinn College has been operating in Dallas since 1990.
The photos below are from the 1969 Bishop College yearbook, back in its happier, groovier days of growth and progress. (Click to see larger images.)
Below, class registration.
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Campus buildings, including the “homage” to the old Bishop administration building in Marshall, “Wyalucing.”
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Above, Raymond Hall, who taught classes in African and American culture.
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Above: “Energetic students got in the groove. Charles Hunt and members of the Bishop Collegians, the lab band, played and really socked it to the students attending the show. From the lab band has come four different groups which are worthy credits to the band and Mr. VanBolden, director.”
Below: “Theopolis Jones, a freshman from Birmingham, Ala., worked out on the drums. He was but one of the forty freshmen who were members of the Ambassadors of Band. Fellow members of the class stood by and looked on with real enthusiasm.”
Below: “Joyce Morris, a sophomore from Oklahoma, was one of the feature vocalists at the talent show which was sponsored by the Ambassadors of Band, the Bishop College Marching Concert Band.”
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Concert choir, under the direction of John S. Meeks.
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Staff of the college newspaper, the Bishop Beacon.
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Zale Library “study-in” (note the 1968 mural by Louis Freund — see it in color, on the Paul Quinn website, here).
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I love these two photos: above, campus security; below, a photo one would never guess was taken in the late 1960s, featuring two men who worked in the receiving department (Wesley Hayes and Roy Sallings).
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Mrs. Annie Mitchell, mother of music teacher Maurine Bailey (who was a legendary instructor at Lincoln High School for many years), with be-ruffled students Harolyn Morris and Estella Parker.
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Homecoming half-time fashion parade.
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Happy students on the hilltop.
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Graduation.
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Paris (TX) News, June 24, 1990 (click to read)
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Sources & Notes
All photos from the 1969 Tiger, the yearbook of Bishop College.
More details on the demise of Bishop College can be found in the Dallas Morning News article “Where Did Bishop Fail? Those Involved With College Disagree on Cause of Fiscal Problems” by Sherry Jacobson (DMN, March 20, 1988).
Titche’s has you covered… (click to see larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Edward Titche and Max Goettinger founded the Titche-Goettinger department store in Dallas in 1902, and in 1904 they moved into the new Wilson Building. In the late 1920s they built their own George Dahl-designed building at Main and St. Paul, which was greatly enlarged and expanded in 1955. The store was popular with downtown shoppers, and profits continued to rise. The next logical step was to open additional stores. It took a while (59 years), but in October, 1961 they opened three — three! — new suburban stores. How was that possible? Because Titche’s (or their then-parent company) purchased the Fort Worth department store chain The Fair of Texas, and several of its stores were re-christened as Titche’s stores (the others eventually became Monnig’s stores).
The ad above is from the 1969 Dallas city directory and shows that by 1969, there were seven Titche’s stores in the Dallas area. Titche’s bit the dust decades ago, and I have to admit that the only Titche’s store I actually remember ever being in was the one in NorthPark (and I might mostly be remembering Joske’s…). I had no idea about any of these other stores (other than the one at Main and St. Paul, which I wish I had been to!).
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The oldest store in the ad above was the one on Main at St. Paul, still standing, still looking good (but, sadly, with that fab logo gone forever).
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The second store was located in North Dallas in the Preston Forest Shopping Center, at the southeast corner of Preston Road and Forest Lane. When this opened as Titches’ first suburban store, the paint must still have been wet. It was originally built as a Fair of Texas store, with its opening scheduled for August, 1961. It was opened in October, 1961 as a Titche’s store — remodeled from the original Amos Parrish Associates of New York design (seen here, in a rendering). (The Fair version was much more interesting!)
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One week later (!), the next two stores opened on the same day: in the Wynnewood Shopping Village in Oak Cliff, and in the Lochwood Shopping Village on Garland Road in far East Dallas. These two stores had been Fair stores and had opened at the same time in August, 1960. The two drawings below look pretty much the same as the rendering of the pre-remodeled Preston Forest store (all designed by Amos Parrish Assoc.). (An interesting tidbit about the Lochwood location: when this store was built by The Fair of Texas — a department store with Fort Worth roots going back to the 1880s or 1890s — it was the first Fair store in Dallas. In honor of this hands-across-the-prairie moment of business expansion, a truckload of Fort Worth dirt was brought over and “mixed symbolically” with Dallas dirt at the 1959 Lochwood groundbreaking.)
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The Arlington store was also a former Fair store; it opened as Titche’s in July, 1963.
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The NorthPark store — which occupied a quarter of a million square feet — was one of the first five stores to open in the brand new mall, in July 1965. NorthPark Center is known for its wonderfully sleek, clean, no-nonsense modern architecture (as seen below), but an early proposed Titche’s rendering from 1962 (seen here) looks a little fussy.
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And, lastly, in this 1960s wave of expansion, a second downtown Dallas location was opened in the new One Main Place in December, 1968 in the form of “Miss Titche,” a concept-store created to appeal to “career girls” who worked downtown and enjoyed shopping during their lunch hours. It was located on the “plaza level” which sounds like it might have been part of the then-new underground tunnel system of shops. If newspaper ads are anything to go on, it looks like Miss Titche managed to hang on until at least 1975.
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Titche’s continued opening new stores into the 1970s, but in August, 1978, it was announced that Titches’ parent company, Allied Stores Corp., was changing the names of all Dallas-area Titche’s stores to “Joske’s.” The nine Titche’s stores operating until the changeover were the flagship store downtown, Preston Forest, Lochwood Village (which became The Treehouse in 1974), Wynnewood, Arlington, NorthPark, Town East, Irving, and Red Bird.
And, just like that, after 72 years, the name of one of Dallas’ oldest department stores vanished.
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Sources & Notes
Ad and details from the 1969 Polk’s Greater Dallas City Directory.
More on Titche-Goettinger can be found at the Department Store Museum, here.
Everyone likes ice cream…. (G. William Jones Collection, SMU)
by Paula Bosse
Thanks to Twitter, I discovered this cool video of film clips of the State Fair of Texas, shot throughout the 1960s, courtesy of SMU’s WFAA Newsfilm Collection/G. William Jones Film and Video Collection, put together by Moving Image Curator Jeremy Spracklen. There are 15 or so clips, some in black and white, some in color, some silent, some with sound. This compilation runs about 24 minutes. Watch it. You’ll enjoy it — especially the montage of fair food at the end! (Make sure you watch in fullscreen.)
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Here are a few screengrabs I took, to give you an idea of the content (images are much cleaner in the video!).
Getting ready for the fair.
Fair Park entrance.
Crowd, baby, binoculars.
Neuhoff hot dog stand.
The monorail (with a cameo by Big Tex).
I don’ t know who this guy is, but he’s in several shots and I love him! Here he is losing out to the woman who correctly guessed his weight.
Kids eating … Pink Things! “Made famous at Six Flags.”
Aqua Net and Moët. (I have to say, I’ve never seen champagne at the fair, but perhaps those are circles I don’t travel in.)
Everyone needs a corny dog fix.
Everyone.
Have a groovy time at this year’s State Fair of Texas!
One of Dallas’ favorite neon signs… (photo: Paula Bosse)
by Paula Bosse
I stopped by Sigel’s liquor store the other day (as one does…) and saw this legendary Sigel’s sign, recently installed in its new home in the parking lot of the Sigel’s store on Greenville Avenue, between Lovers Lane and Southwestern Boulevard, across from the Old Town Shopping Center. I love this neon sign. (See a very large image of it here.)
The sign’s design can be traced back to Dallas artist Marvin M. Sigel (whose great-uncle Harry Sigel founded the business in 1905) — this Fabulous Fifties design was created around 1953 specifically for the then-new store at 5636 Lemmon Avenue (at Inwood). When that store closed in 2009, the sign was refurbished and moved up to the company’s Addison location until that store fell victim to the company’s bankruptcy and was closed. Here’s a video of the fabulous sign when it was in Addison, with close-ups of its flashing neon and dancing bubbles:
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Marvin Meyer Sigel was born in Poland in 1932 and settled in Dallas in 1937 with his immigrant parents, both of whom had been doctors in Poland (his mother a dentist, his father an M.D.), although only his father continued to practice medicine in the United States. He lived in the vibrant Jewish enclave of South Dallas and went to Forest Avenue High School where he seems to have been a popular kid, interested in art, drumming, and ROTC. Below, a photo from the 1949 yearbook with the caption “Marvin ‘Hot Drums’ Sigel plays with the Swing Band.”
His Forest Avenue High School senior photo, from 1949:
And his 1953 senior photo from the University of Texas:
After studying art at both SMU (under Ed Bearden and DeForrest Judd) and the University of Texas and receiving his B.F.A. from UT in 1953, Sigel served a stint in the Eighth Army in Korea. Back in Dallas, he was remarkably active in the local art community — for decades — as both a fine artist and as an art instructor. He also worked for a while at Peter Wolf Associates, in advertising (on projects for companies like Braniff), and he even did a lot of the tedious paste-up work for Sigel’s ads (back when every picture of a bottle of wine or spirits had to be cut out individually and pasted into one of those huge ads!). But his passion was art, and at the same time he had those regular-paycheck gigs, he also managed to maintain a furious pace of painting new pieces to exhibit at a dizzying number of art shows. Below is an example of one of his watercolors, from 1957 (which was recently offered at auction by David Dike Fine Art). The title? “Cocktail Abstraction” — appropriate subject matter for a member of the Sigel family!
“Cocktail Abstraction” by Marvin Sigel (1957)
When the Sigel’s Liquor store No. 7 opened at Lemmon & Inwood, it was suggested by family members that, hey, we have an artist in the family, let’s get Marvin to design a sign for us. According to Marvin, his cousin Sidney Sigel, who ran the company, probably just wanted a “rectangular sign with block letters,” but other family members wanted something newer and more exciting — something modern that would jump out of a sea of boring rectangular signs with block letters and draw attention. And it certainly did just that. If, as reports have it, that dazzling neon sign was designed in 1953, Marvin Sigel was only 21 years old!
When news broke 56 years later, in 2009, that the Lemmon & Inwood store was closing, there was a concerned uproar from the public about what would happen to the sign. Mr. Sigel was a bit taken aback by how much the people of Dallas had grown to love that sign and considered it a city landmark. Marvin Sigel, then 77 years old, said in a 2009 Dallas Morning News interview, “It was clever, but I figured it would be replaced by something more clever in a half-dozen years.”
The sign was built by the venerable Dallas firm of J. F. Zimmerman & Sons (est. 1901) who for generations had installed decorative neon elements all around town and had built innumerable lighted signs for companies big and small — their work could be seen on the Mercantile Building’s wonderful tower, on the exterior of the downtown Titche’s store on Main Street, and in the instantly recognizable signs for places as varied as the Cotton Bowl, Big Town, and, presumably, various other Sigel’s stores around the city.
The sign which was moved from Store No. 7 at Lemmon & Inwood to Addison had on its pole a small plaque (seen here) which said:
This Non-Conforming Sign designed by Marvin Sigel was built in the early 1950s. It was moved from Dallas, TX at Lemmon Ave. & Inwood. After being granted a variance it was refurbished to Code and installed here in June of 2009. Sign refurbished and installed by Starlite Sign of Denton, TX.
Interestingly, the plaque on the new location of the sign has a slightly different text:
It appears that this is a different Sigel’s sign. In 1965, there were two Sigel’s stores on Lovers Lane: Store No. 8 was along the Miracle Mile on West Lovers Lane, near what is now the Dallas North Tollway, and Store No. 12 was on East Lovers Lane at Greenville (then near Louanns nightclub).
1965 Dallas directory
In an April 22, 2009 Dallas Morning News article by Jeffrey Weiss (“The Story Behind That Sigel’s Sign”), is this quote from Mr. Sigel’s son, David S. Z. Sigel, about the original sign at Lemmon & Inwood, with mention of another similar sign: “He created the designs for this sign, as well as a similar but smaller sign which stood outside the Lovers Lane store (where Central Market now stands) for many years.” Here’s a map from a November, 1964 grand opening ad for the new store at 5744 E. Lovers Lane:
Detail from a grand opening ad, Nov. 6, 1964
So is the sign currently standing in the parking lot of the Sigel’s Fine Wines & Great Spirits at 5757 Greenville Avenue the sign which originally stood only a short four-tenths of a mile away? I hope so! And if it is, welcome back to the neighborhood, cool sign!
Whichever sign this is, it is one of the greatest neon designs Dallas has ever had, and I’m so happy it’s survived for over a half-century, through phenomenal city growth, physical displacement, and even company bankruptcy.
Thanks, Marvin, for designing this wonderful sign! And thanks, Starlite Sign of Denton, for the beautiful refurbishing!
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Sources & Notes *
Top photo and photo of blue plaque taken by me on July 27, 2017 at the Sigel’s store at 5757 Greenville Avenue.
YouTube video by Andrew F. Wood, shot in Addison in 2013.
Sources for other images as noted.
The Zimmerman & Sons nameplate can be seen on the original Lemmon & Inwood sign here (click to enlarge), posted on Flickr by Tim Anderson (a detail of his photo can be seen below) (there is another Zimmerman nameplate posted in the comments on that Flickr page); what appears to be a Zimmerman plate is on the side of the sign at the Greenville Avenue location facing the store’s entrance, not on the side seen in my photo at the top.
Please check out the Dallas Morning News article in theDMN archives titled “Sigel’s Sign Designer Surprised by Its Fame — Project for Family’s Liquor Store Wasn’t a Hit with Boss, He Recalls” by Jeffrey Weiss (April 28, 2009) in which Marvin Sigel discusses his famous sign.
Also, check out these related (online) DMN articles:
“Sigel’s Beverages, A 111-Year-Old Dallas Chain, Filed for Bankruptcy; Wants to Close 5 Stores” by Maria Halkias (Oct. 21, 2016), here
“Sigel’s Iconic Neon Sign Returning to Dallas After Years Wasting Away in Addison” by Robert Wilonsky (March 27, 2017), here
If anyone can verify that this sign is, in fact, the sign from Store No. 12 (Lovers & Greenville), please let me know!
UPDATE: Marvin Sigel died on Feb. 23, 2019 at the age of 87 (his obituary is on the Dallas Morning News website, here). After I wrote this post, Marvin’s son, David, contacted me to let me know his father had seen this and was delighted to know that people still appreciated his work. This was one of the most popular posts of the year. People absolutely still love your sign, Marvin! RIP.
In May, 1962, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) had their national convention in Dallas. The April 1962 edition of the AIA Journal contained a boosterific article on Big D’s exciting architecture, a handy bibliography of previous Journal articles on specific Dallas projects and architects, a few photos, and a helpful map of downtown, containing, I suppose, the Big City sites that the visiting architect might find worth a look. In addition to your staples like Neiman-Marcus, the relatively new Statler Hilton, and the Republic Bank Building, it also contained a lot of … odd things. Like Magicland, M & M Leathercraft, and Ring and Brewer Western Wear. AND a lot of bars. A lot. Some of them pretty seedy. And several of which employed the talents of “exotic” dancers. (Hey, what happens in Dallas stays in Dallas.)
The map is actually pretty good — even though many of the simply-drawn buildings look absolutely nothing like their real counterparts (I mean … come on, architects!) — it’s helpful because it shows exactly where so many of these off-the-beaten-path bars and restaurants and shops were located. For instance, I’ve heard my aunt talk for years about her favorite Happy Hour destination back in the ’60s, but it wasn’t until I saw this map that I actually knew where Victor’s Lounge was: across Commerce from the Statler Hilton (right next to the architect’s favorite Dallas stop, Warehouse Cut-Rate Liquors).
Check it out. The alphabetical key is printed on the map, the numerical key is below. Click the map so you, too, can find out where exactly Sol’s Turf Bar was and which thoroughfare one needed to take to reach the Sportatorium (’cause if there’s anything architects love more than magic tricks, it’s professional wrestling!).
1. YMCA 2. Magicland; Phil’s Delicatessen 3. Rheinishcherhoff Restaurant 4. Cattlemen’s Restaurant 5. Majestic Theatre 6. Capri Theater 7. Tower Theater; Sigel’s Liquors 8. Corrigan Tower 9. Tower Petroleum Bldg. 10. Miller Bros. Jewelry 11. Ring & Brewer Western Wear 12. Filet Restaurant 13. Mexico City Restaurant 14. First National Motor Bank 15. Rio Grande Life Bldg. 16. National Bank of Commerce 17. E. M. Kahn Department Store 18. Texas Bank Bldg. 19. Wholesale Merchants Bldg. 20. James K. Wilson Co. 21. Santa Fe Bldg. 22. WFAA Radio Station 23. Oriental Cafe 24. Davis Bldg. 25. First National Bank 26. Cullum & Boren Sporting Goods 27. Palace Theater 28. 211 North Ervay Bldg.; Forget-Me-Not Gift Shop 29. Praetorian Bldg.; Shoe Center 30. Eatwell Cafe 31. Black Angus Restaurant 32. Mobil Bldg. (Magnolia Bldg.) 33. Golden Pheasant Restaurant; Hoffman’s Men’s Wear 34. Melody Shop; Shoe Center 35. Sol’s Turf Bar 36. Copper Cow Restaurant 37. Reynolds-Penland Department Store 38. E. M. Kahn Co. 39. Dreyfuss & Son 40. Volk’s Department Store; Rogers Factory Shoe Store 41. Mercantile Security Bldg. 42. Dallas Mercantile Bldg.; Tall Fashions 43. Victor’s Lounge 44. Warehouse Liquors 45. Town & Country Restaurant 46. Skeffington’s Men’s Wear 47. Lone Star Gas Co. 48. M & M Leathercraft 49. National Bankers Life Bldg. 50. Zoo Bar 51. Steak House Unique 52. Dallas Power and Light 53. 209 Browder Bldg. 54. Bell Telephone Co. 55. Federal Reserve Bank 56. Community Chest 57. Employers Insurance 58. Reserve Life Bldg. 59. Life Bldg.; Moore-DeGrazier Jewelry Co. 60. Theater Lounge (burlesque) 61. Horseshoe Lounge 62. Carousel Club (burlesque) 63. Colony Club (burlesque) 64. Brockles Restaurant
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Sources & Notes
Photo and map from the April 1962 issue of AIA Journal. The entire issue is contained in a PDF, here. The Dallas content begins on page 39 of the PDF. The bibliography — which contains articles that I’d actually love to read! — can be found on page 83 of the PDF.
A view of the dowtown “canyon” — looking north on Akard from just south of Main, published in 1962, but probably taken in 1961 — possibly from the Baker Hotel.
A few of the tall buildings which made up the walls of the “canyon“:
AdolphusHotel — northwest corner of Commerce and Akard, built in 1911/12, designed by architects Barnett, Haynes & Barnett. The Adolphus — the oldest building in this group and the tallest building in the city when it was built — is definitely one the canyon’s anchors, but in the photo above it is mostly — if not entirely — out of frame at the left foreground.
MagnoliaBuilding — northeast corner of Commerce and Akard (seen at right foreground of photo); called the “Mobil Building” in the 1962 Dallas directory, built in 1922; Alfred C. Bossom, architect. Now the Magnolia Hotel.
Adolphus Tower — southwest corner of Main and Akard, built in 1954; Wyatt Hedrick, architect (click pictures to see larger images). The building is currently being remodeled for office use.
Southwestern Life Building — southeast corner of Main and Akard, built in 1911/12; Otto H. Lang, architect. Bill Clements (before he became Governor of Texas) bought the building on spec in 1965, then had it demolished in 1972. It was a parking lot for many years. It is now Pegasus Plaza, an attractive open area.
Gulf States Building — northwest corner of Main and Akard; originally known as the MarvinBuilding, built in 1927, with a later addition of upper stories designed by Lang and Witchell. Converted to lofts.
KirbyBuilding — northeast corner of Main and Akard. The Kirby Building — the beautiful white building at center right in the top photo — was designed by the same architects who designed the Adolphus Hotel, Barnett, Haynes & Barnett, with a 1924 annex designed by Lang and Witchell. When construction began in 1912, the building was originally called the Busch Building, named after Adolphus Busch, whose hotel was just a stone’s throw away (it was called the Great Southern Life Building from 1918 to 1922 and was renamed “Kirby” when it was purchased in 1922 by John H. Kirby). When the building opened in 1913, its most prominent tenant was the A. Harris department store, which occupied the first five floors and the basement. On December 31, 1960, it was announced that the parent company of pioneer Dallas department store Sanger’s (which, at the time of this announcement was part of the Federated Stores chain, but which had opened as Sanger Bros. in Dallas in 1872) had acquired another pioneer Dallas department store, A. Harris & Co. (established in 1892, though Adolph Harris had been in business in Dallas since 1887). The newly christened “Sanger-Harris” store settled into the old Harris space in the Kirby in 1961. It’s hard to tell, but it looks as if there is both an “S” on the corner of the building in this photo (for “Sanger’s”?) as well as the “A. Harris & Co.” sign affixed to the Akard side of the building. The A. Harris store had been a Dallas landmark at Main and Akard for almost 50 years, but it seems the sign would have come down by the time of the official change in name (which happened on July 10, 1961). So perhaps this photo was taken between January and July of 1961, when both stores were actually operating under the same roof and accepting either store’s credit card. The Kirby is now a snazzy apartment building.
Mayfair Department Store — 1414 Elm, southwest corner of Elm and Akard. Built in 1946, this Dallas outpost of a department store chain was designed by George L. Dahl and has been converted to apartments.
Dallas Federal Savings and Loan Building — 1505 Elm, northeast corner of Elm and Akard. This blue, gray, and white building was built in 1956/57 and was designed by George Dahl. One of Dallas’ earliest movie theaters — the QueenTheater, built in 1912 — was demolished in 1955 to make way for the new office building. (A brand new parking garage was built at the same time.) Converted to condos and apartments.
Fidelity Union Tower — northeast corner of Pacific and Akard, built in 1959/60, designed by Hedrick & Stanley; called the Mayflower Building for a short time. Now the Mosaic, converted to residences.
511 North Akard — between Patterson and San Jacinto, built in 1958/59, designed for the Relief and Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention by architects Thomas, Jameson & Merrill. Currently apartments, with a 7-Eleven at street-level.
All but one of these buildings are still standing, and most have been converted into apartments and condos. The view up Akard today (here) doesn’t look as much like a canyon as it did 55 years ago, due mainly to the loss of the Southwestern Life Building at Main and Akard.
Below is a photo looking south on Akard, with the Baker Hotel (on Commerce) straight ahead. That “third wall” formed by the Baker makes things a little more “canyon-esque.” (Note the Queen Theater at the left.)
And, finally, a postcard of “The Akard Street Canyon” which tourists could share with the family back in Poughkeepsie.
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Sources & Notes
Top photo from the April, 1962 issue of AIA Journal (which is scanned in its entirety in a PDF, here).
Above, the WFAA studios, seen in a wonderful painting by Dallas artist Ed Bearden. The image is from a postcard touting the brand new ultra-modern building designed by one of Dallas’ top architects, the prolific George L. Dahl. The building stillstands at Young and Record streets, next to the home of its then-sister-company, The Dallas Morning News (appropriately, theNewsbuilding was also designed by Dahl … as was the soon-to-be HQ of The News, the old DallasPublicLibrary at Commerce and Harwood).
The super-cool mid-century “WFAA AM-FM-TV broadcasting plant” was completed in 1961. It opened to much fanfare in April of that year, with star-studded festivities featuring personal appearances by a host of ABC stars such as Connie Stevens, Johnny Crawford, and Nick Adams. If catching a glimpse of “Cricket” or the Rifleman’s son didn’t wow you, the public was also invited to tour the building and gawk at its state-of-the-art radio and television studios. This large 68,000-square-foot building allowed WFAA radio and WFAA-TV to be housed under the same roof. Before this, the AM and FM radio stations were broadcasting from studios atop the Santa Fe Building, and Channel 8 was broadcasting from their television studios on Harry Hines, at Wolf (studios which they sold to KERA at the end of 1959).
Aside from the innovative “folded-plate” concrete roof, one of the first things I noticed about this building was the staircase behind a “wall” of plate glass — I was instantly reminded of the staircase from the old RogersElectricbuilding (now Steinway Hall) on the Central Expressway service road at McCommas — all it needed was a gigantic ficus tree. (Unsurprisingly, that building — built in 1959 — was also designed by the very, very busy George Dahl.)
Below is an early pre-construction rendering of the WFAA building, from 1959.
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And a photo from the early 1970s.
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And here’s a view taken from the side of the building in 1963, looking toward Young Street.
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The early-’70s photo above was taken from this ad from the 1974-75 TexasAlmanac. Ah, “Communications Center.” (I have to say, I’ve never heard of “WFAA-FM Stereo 98” nor their slogan “The Velvet Sound of Beautiful Music.” In fact, by the time this edition of the Almanac was published, WFAA-FM no longer existed — it had changed both its name — to KZEW — and its format — to rock.)
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Sources & Notes
Color postcard found on the entertaining blog Texas Pop Culture; see the post — which includes scans of the reverse side of the card — here.
Bearden’s signature is a bit hard to make out — the slightly distorted magnified signature can be seen here.
The more I see of Ed Bearden’s work, the more I like it. See his Dallas skyline from 1958 here; see his Dallas skyline from 1959 here.
Photo of the Channel 8 news vehicles is from the Belo Records collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; more info on this photo is here.
More on architect George L. Dahl can be found at the Handbook of Texas, here, and at Wikipedia, here.
Read more about the history of FM radio in Dallas — including histories of WFAA-FM and KZEW — at the indispensable website of local broadcasting history — DFW Retroplex, here.
Until last week, I don’t think I’d ever heard the 1969 song “The Back Side of Dallas,” sung by Jeannie C. Riley, who had had the blockbuster hit “Harper Valley PTA” the previous year. How have I never heard this? I was going to post it last week until I realized that it would be better to wait until today, because of this line from the song: “Meet me in Dallas on June the 23rd, his letter read.” And here we are, June 23rd.
The song, written by Jerry Foster and Bill Rice, was released in October, 1969. It wasn’t the huge, crossover, multi-award-winning monster hit that “Harper Valley PTA” was, but it did earn Jeannie another Grammy nomination (she lost to Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” — if you’re going to lose, that’s a pretty great performance to lose to!).
Like “Harper Valley PTA,” it was one of several songs of the era which brought country music into the somewhat seedy realm of 1960s American culture. “The Back Side of Dallas” is about a small-town girl who finds herself a lonesome “working girl” in Dallas, chain-smoking king-size cigarettes, drinking in dingy bars, and popping pills. This ain’t no Kitty Wells song, y’all. (I’d love to hear Miranda Lambert — who also has an incredible country voice — cover this.)
Jeannie C. Riley — born in Anson, Texas in 1945 — was one of the first certifiable sex symbols in country music, always gorgeous, outfitted in miniskirts and go-go boots, with sky-high hair teased to a fare-thee-well. AND she had an absolutely fantastic voice. Below is video of a 24-year-old Jeannie C. Riley singing “Back Side of Dallas” on Del Reeves’ Country Carnival in 1969 (Del Reeves had some greatsongs in the ’60s, but his TV persona was a little too Dean Martin-wannabe for my taste … and … oh dear … that set!):
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I prefer the studio version, below. I’ve listened to this song dozens of times now, and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet!
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And here’s Jeannie singing it in 2011, still sounding great! (Her thick Texas accent is the absolute best, and her laugh is fantastic.) She talks about the song a bit at the beginning with Jerry Foster, one of the writers of the song — the song itself starts at about the 3:10 mark.
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And, to round out this “June the 23rd” post, a few photos of Jeannie C. — surely one of the most photogenic faces and bad-ass vocalists in the history of country music. As my father used to say, “hot damn.”
“Harper Valley PTA” — you know you want to hear it. This is a great live version she did on, I think, the Wilburn Brothers Show, with Harold Morrison on dobro.
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Not that anyone’s going to confuse the two songs, but this song has nothing to do with the 1915 song of the same name by Adolphus Hotel orchestra leader Jack Gardner (which you can read about here).
I give you a 21-year-old Nolan Ryan soaking his pitching finger in pickle juice. As one does.
Years before the future Baseball Hall of Famer made it to DFW, young Nolan was the star pitcher of the New York Mets. He was prone to blisters on the middle finger of his pitching hand, so Mets trainer Gus Mauch put him on a strict pickle juice regimen of soaking the affected finger between innings to toughen the skin and prevent blisters from popping up at inopportune moments. And, of course, this weird pickle juice thing became really big news in May, 1968. Sportswriters jumped all over it, and a few began calling him “Pickle Brine Ryan,” because it sort of rhymes.
The delicatessen where Ryan’s pickle juice of choice was purchased tried to cash in on what they hoped would become a fad by placing jars of the brine in the window with a sign proudly proclaiming that they were the source of the famous “Mets’ Pitching Juice.” According to a UPI story, when another pickle company offered the Mets five gallons of their pickle juice, trainer Mauch responded, “Gosh, you could embalm a whole swimming team with five gallons!”
While teammates relax before a game, using anything handy for a pillow, New York Mets’ pitcher Nolan Ryan (left) soaks his pitching fingers in pickle juice. That’s right — pickle juice! Ryan says the juice toughens his fingers so that he doesn’t get blisters.
I wonder if he kept it up? By the time he got back home to Texas and signed with the Rangers, I’d love to know that he upped his brine game by using pickled jalapeño juice.
An earlier Nolan Ryan-related Flashback Dallas post — “Nolan Ryan’s Celebratory Pancake Breakfast — 1972” — is here.
They mean business: they’re wearing suits and ties…
Everyone likes ice cream…. (G. William Jones Collection, SMU)
Jeannie C. Riley
Flashback : Dallas 